Allegany County SPCA, past and future

WELLSVILLE — Concerns have changed little over the nearly 35 years since the county’s first shelter for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) was constructed in Stannards.

“The similarities are amazing,” said Lynda Pruski, president of the SPCA Serving Allegany County, as it is now known.

“There was definitely a need when they started raising funds for this shelter to be built in 1985. It is eerie because we started our campaign for our new shelter in 2015, 30 years later,” she said.

Newspaper accounts from the 1980s report that the original shelter was needed because there was no place to house the animals rescued by the SPCA or given up to the SPCA for adoption. In those days the animals, mostly dogs and cats, were kept in the homes of members, or fostered out to local veterinarians.

Recently, the national ASPCA celebrated its 100th anniversary. Here, the Allegany County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in 1911. According to the secretary’s book from that time, the group was primarily concerned with the humane treatment of cows and horses. One of the first cases the group looked into was an investigation of the conditions in which stock were shipped and cared for on the Pennsylvania Railroad. During that first year, 20 cases of cruelty were investigated, resulting in four fines.

After several meetings of a group calling itself the Humane Society of Cuba, on Sept. 26, 1911 the group was incorporated and officially renamed the Allegany County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Its first meeting had been held in the Palmer Opera House, but afterwards the group met monthly in the fire hall. The group was still meeting in Cuba during World War II.

Sometime between the end of the war and the 1980s, the organization’s meetings were moved first to Friendship, then to Belmont, and then to Wellsville.

By the 1980s, the group, headquartered out of Belmont, was looking for a place to build a shelter.

“They did the same things then that we are doing now. They investigated cases of cruelty," Pruski noted. "They conducted educational programs in the schools. They promoted responsible pet ownership and spay and neutering dogs and cats, and they promoted bringing animals inside when it is cold. They needed volunteers. They held fundraisers to support their programs and the care of animals because as it is today, the SPCA is supported only by donations, grants and bequests and does not receive funding from taxes or local governments."

Many volunteers with the names Cott, Harris, Mulkin, Geffers, Ives and more are listed in the scrapbooks relating to the construction of the Stannards shelter. The group raised funds for the construction of the shelter built on land donated by the Clarke family. Ground was broken in April 1985.

The original building was constructed by students from the Alfred State College Building and Trades Department over two years. The interior work and outdoor runs were completed by volunteers, including members of the Kiwanis Club and the Boy Scouts working on Saturdays. The shelter was officially opened May 24, 1990 with eight outside runs, 12 inside kennels and 30 cat cages. The cost was $30,778 just for materials. The work was done by volunteers.

The new shelter, in Belmont, is scheduled to open late this spring. The cost of construction for the shelter, which is over 11 times larger than the Stannards facility, is $2.7 million. Through a grassroots campaign the funds have been raised from donations, bequests, grants and fundraisers.

“Please tell me you don’t have a basement,” Donna DiGirolamo said to Pruski recently.

DiGirolamo was a volunteer and eventually president of the SPCA when the Stannards shelter first opened. She led the group when, only five years after it opened, the shelter almost shut down due to a funding shortfall.

After a summer of fundraising, attending local government meetings from village and town to county and state, and asking for help (and being declined), dozens of newspaper articles detailing a dire prediction of what would happen to animals if the shelter closed, a grassroots campaign came up with $20,000 to keep the shelter open.

In the old shelter DiGirolamo refers to, kennels for dogs, along with a washer and dryer, and a dog and cat bathing room, are located downstairs where there is little light or ventilation.

There is no basement in the new shelter, which uses the latest shelter design techniques, including sound mitigation, energy efficiency, air exchange and sanitation. The SPCA has incorporated "green" building strategies to minimize environmental impacts and increase efficiency, such as Geo-thermal heating and cooling and solar arrays.

The new shelter is constructed with ICF (insulated concrete forms) - comprised of Styrofoam inner and outer walls and concrete poured inside the walls which not only has a high R-value, but will also act as a sound barrier. And most importantly, the shelter is the recipient of grant funds which allow it to have a spay/neuter clinic. Interior work is now being completed, including cat rooms and condos, glass enclosures for dogs, meet and greet rooms, the spay neuter/clinic, isolation rooms, office, maintenance and storage facilities and an indoor arena.

“We are certainly grateful to those people who first started the SPCA in Cuba and for all those people who cared for animals over the years," Pruski said. "Attitudes toward animals have changed, but there are still people who care for animals and how they are treated. Today we are thankful that we are able to make a difference and to build a shelter for the future."

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